Efforts have been made in the past to improve the appearance of original equipment automotive steel or aluminum wheels. Such attempts have included colorizing or coating the wheel, physically augmenting the wheel, affixing a hub cap or wheel cover on the wheel, adding trim to the wheel, and replacing the wheel itself. Conventional OEM wheels or aluminum wheels can be painted or plated to enhance their appearance. These methods require considerable effort and have a limited result in enhancing the overall appearance of such wheels. Other efforts to improve the appearance of a conventional wheel have led to the attachment of an exterior plate or a series of plates by mounting them with the lugs; however, such plates are intended to increase the width of the wheel making it appear more massive and bulky. Further efforts to camouflage the appearance of a rudimentary automobile wheel have leg to the incorporation of the caps or covers, where the caps or covers can be plastic, metal, or wire spokes. The plastic caps are typically formed by injection molding, and the metal caps are formed by casting or blanking and drawing operation. Such caps or covers often suffer the shortcoming that they present little more than surface decoration providing little in the way of optical illusion persuasive of a faithful reproduction of a cast wheel. With reference to the adding trim to the wheel, the wheel trim is often employed in an effort to make the hub cap or the wheel appear wider and can be configured to obscure from view the junction between the tire and the wheel. Often times, consumers are driven to replace the entire wheel in a quest for stylish transport. Previous solutions in the nature of augmenting the wheel sometimes presented a flimsy and visually unappealing wheel design. Thus, various forms of decorative automobile wheels themselves have been proposed. Aftermarket automobile wheels are typically cast aluminum or stamped and rolled wheels. For the cast aluminum wheel, the surface to be exposed to the view is chrome plated or machined with a lathe cutting tool to remove rough edges and provide a smooth texture and luster. The lathing process leaves spiral marking indicative of the process. A machined cast wheel has a unique appearance that is valued by consumers, but the decorative chrome plated or machine wheels are expensive to manufacture and finish. The cast of making even the least expensive decorative machined cast wheel can be four times that for steel wheel augmented by other methods of appearance augmentation, such as wheel covers or wheel caps. Decorative automobile wheels are also bulky, heavy, and cumbersome to package and transport to retail outlets, thus, consumers are faced with the choice of an expensive machined cast wheels or inexpensive and less attractive devices. These inexpensive and less attractive devices do not have the improved appearance of the machined cast wheels. They also lack the high quality appearance that normally associates with a high-end machined cast wheels. Ordinary wheel covers have not achieved a resemblance to quality chrome plated or machined wheels that would give a consumer an inexpensive alternative to the expensive chrome plated or machined cast wheels. Such wheel covers lack the depth and features required to satisfactorily replicate the visual, dimensional appeal of an expensive alloy wheel.
It is therefore an objective of the present invention to provide an interchangeable and decorative wheel cover that creates the illusion of a deep lip within the conventional wheel. The present invention also provides multiple attachment methods so that the interchangeable and decorative wheel cover can be efficiently and firmly secured with the conventional wheel. The present invention completely covers the conventional wheel while creating expensive machined cast wheel appearance within the conventional wheel.